Say what you will about the positives of social media (and certainly there are quite a few positives), but near the top of the negative column has got to be social media's propensity for gaffes, slips, and careless no-filter missteps.
Are E-Books Good For Us?
Every April I read The Great Gatsby. The tradition started the April of my junior year at Wheaton College, when I took my copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece (the most perfect American novel, IMHO) to Adams Park, laid down on the newly warm grass and read through the whole book in one sunny afternoon. It was bliss.
Groupspend
The great hope of the networked, power-to-the-collective, wikipedia web world is that somehow the masses will be bound together in common causes more quickly and more efficiently than ever. Somehow we will all become more selfless and more willing to work together across dividing lines now that we're all so interconnected. But this great web we exist within has hardly made humanity more unified. On the contrary, it seems like we're more fragmented than ever--with more and more self-interested cliques and groups and niche blogs vying for the energies of smaller and smaller bands of people.
The Separation of Church and Status
As Christians, if we truly believe that each human is a precious being—that, as C.S. Lewis put it, “there is no mere mortal… Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses”—then shouldn’t we be seeking to truly know others rather than to simply “keep tabs on” them through short updates, photo albums, and wall posts?
Reflections on the Real in 2010 Cinema
But almost everything in our digitized, cut-and-paste world these days has a tenuous relationship to reality. Perhaps that’s why these dubiously “true” films are nevertheless enjoyed and embraced, particularly by younger audiences. The idea of black and white, “true or untrue” doesn’t make much sense to a generation who has grown up with a steady stream of mediated half-truths, advertising, made-for-TV reflections on the news, The Real World, etc. It goes without saying that something can be enjoyable, moving, resonant, but completely fabricated. Even if it touts itself, with a wink, as “real."
The Social (Flirting) Network
When I found out about likealittle.com last week (Biola has its own site), I wasn't the least bit surprised that it was the Next Big Social Media Thing to hit college campuses. The site, self-described as "a flirting-facilitator platform (or FFP, for advanced users)" basically allows college students to kill time in class by posting flirtatious notes to the person they've got their eye on across the room.
As the World Tunes
But auto-tune is just one of many digital enhancement tools in the air-brush arsenal of the Photoshop world. The irony of auto-tune's disposition as the joke of Y2K remix culture is that it's really no worse than any of the other digital tools we have at our disposal to, for example, take clips from TV and turn them into re-edited assemblages ripe for viral video glory.
Gaga-Speak
What does Lady Gaga mean? What does she stand for? Very little, argues Camille Paglia. But that's precisely the sort of cultural icon this generation relates to. Gaga=flashy lights, bright colors, pleasing sounds, funky beats, shocking vaudeville clips, "what is she wearing?" hyperlink viral fodder, and bits and pieces of politics thrown in for good measure. In short, Gaga is a million little pieces of random amusements that clutter our feeds, walls, channels, apps and inboxes in this gleefully Google-Gaga world.
The Social Network
The Social Network is more than just a Fincher film. It's a time-capsule for our time—a document of a curious revolution in social communication, economics, and the shifting notion of "status" in a world where roots, tradition, and familial privilege are less important than the ability to navigate media and manipulate tech-enabled perceptions of one's digital self.
The Challenge of Belief
In the end, very little knowledge in this world is ironclad. Very little is absolutely proved or exhaustively understood. Vast mystery inheres in every moment of our lives, in all the minutia. But that doesn't debilitate us; we have faith in the functioning of the world. Faith is inescapable, even if we don't often recognize it as such.
"Now ... This"
In America particularly, we are obsessed with the "next." We want to get something done and move on to the next thing. Perhaps this is why we consume media at such a breakneck speed and with such dizzying efficiency. But what does this do to our ability to 1) dwell on something for a long period of time, 2) discern what is worth thinking about and what isn't, and 3) value depth rather than breadth?
What is the iPhone Doing to Us?
With an iPhone—which contains endless amounts of “task” potential within its aluminosilicate glass frame—“spare time” is a foreign concept, because when the world is literally in your pocket, there’s always something to do. But really, these “things to do” (that they are called “tasks” or “applications” is a clever way to convince us of their utility) are mostly just distractions. The iPhone is perhaps the greatest one-stop-shop distraction-generating device of our time.
We Live in Public
We Live in Public is an insightful but ridiculous film. It correctly theorizes that the Internet is pushing culture in the direction of vast openness and away from old notions of privacy. But, ridiculously, it assumes this will be some sort of jarring, fascist, unwelcome surprise, or that we won't all gleefully collude in the erosion of privacy. We will, and we are.
Our Inconsolable Secret
In response to my last post about Balloon Boy and our human obsession with being recognized and affirmed, Christianne—a faithful and wise reader of my blog—offered a comment that was a helpful corrective to my admittedly harsh rhetoric about how things like Facebook and Twitter are “silly” attempts to “get the attention of other people who are just as weak and attention-seeking as we are.” Here is part of what Christianne wrote.
There's a Balloon Boy Inside All of Us
Last week the world watched as a homemade balloon carried a helpless little boy named Falcon Henne off into oblivion. Every news channel was following it in real time, as the nation held its breath over the fate of little Falcon. It was as if we were watching Baby Jessica in the well all over again. Everyone was hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Balloon Boy Falcon was lighting up the Twitter trends. For a few hours, the nation was utterly compelled.
I Joined Twitter... Sigh.
Our Addiction to Public Communication
I wrote a new technology piece in Relevant magazine’s September/October issue, entitled “Short Attention Span Faith.” You can read the whole thing by clicking here, but here’s a short little excerpt.
The Problem With Kids Today
Talking About Blogging
I figure the best way to end this little “Talking About…” communication series is to get really meta and write about blogging. It’s a form of communication I’ve been quite familiar with for the better part of the last two years, and it’s something I’ve always approached with a critical eye. In my first blog post back on July 1 2007 (“Welcome to my antiblog”), I laid out a series of “Dos and Don’ts” that would guide my blog from the start. I’ve listed them below, with evaluative comments about how I have or have not stayed true to them.
Talking About Online Chatting
Since some time in the late 90s, online chatting has been a popular form of communication among people below a certain age. Whether AIM, gmail chat, facebook chat, ichat, or whatever other mode of usage, the online ping pong form of communication is something most of us have participated in or do participate in on a daily basis.